Institution: University of TorontoAmanda Goodman (PhD, University of California, Berkeley, 2013) is an Assistant Professor cross-appointed in the Department for the Study of Religion and the Department of East Asian Studies. Her research focuses on the formative Tang-Song transition period of Chinese Buddhism, and specifically the Chinese esoteric or tantric Buddhist traditions of the eighth through tenth centuries. Grounded in the textual and material finds from the Dunhuang Buddhist cave site, her work engages with broader conceptual issues in the study of the dissemination and appropriation or alteration of Buddhism across the Sinitic world in the pre-modern period. She is also interested in the cross-cultural transmission of Buddhism along the old Silk Road, and regularly teaches on the topic of Central Asian Buddhism. She is currently preparing a book-length study centered on an indigenous Chinese Buddhist ritual compilation, the Vajra Peak Scripture, that reflects on regional and trans-regional esoteric Buddhist ritual trends during China’s middle-period.
